


Broken Glass

by BlueSteelFairy



Category: RWBY
Genre: CW Domestic Abuse, CW Miscarriage, cw emotional abuse, head canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-02-28 23:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13282335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueSteelFairy/pseuds/BlueSteelFairy
Summary: Before she was Cinder Fall, she was a girl. But what series of events led her to become Salem's Fall Maiden? What led her to decide on such a path of violence and destruction? Why did she desire power, strength, and fear...? || Theoretical Origin Story





	Broken Glass

_ As someone who hails from Mistral, I can assure you the situation there is... equally undesirable. _

 

_...And a Fall Maiden with a surname so appropriate, she probably picked it herself.... _

 

_ What is wrong with you? How can you be so broken inside… to take so many lives, and then come here and rub it in our faces like it’s something to be proud of?!  _

 

She had grown up in a cave. Not a cold cave, not at first. It was one of a series of caves carved from the cliffs of Mistral. The cliffs offered rare sanctuary from monsters, and the narrow paths made it difficult for enemies of the human variety to reach. It was a thriving community, and her father was their leader.

 

He ruled fairly, and made sure no one suffered. Their family prospered, and was invited to many a party, festivity, and ballroom dance. She could barely remember, her mother had been there. But she could not remember the face of the woman who birthed her, for she had died when she was so small. It didn't help that after he died, his second wife disposed of all the photos of her predecessor.

 

The absence of her father's influence left severe impact on the family unit. Her half sister and her step-mother were enraged, and lashed out at her more often than not. If a task needed to be done for the sake of the 'household' (if you could call a cavern residence that), they would leave it to her.

 

_ "You ungrateful little welp. You should have died with your father! At least then I would only have my own child to care for." _

_ "You think you're so great, don't you? Because you know how to sew and cook? Because you're so pretty?" _

 

Everyday, her stepmother threw her accosted her. Every single day, she tasked her with the most difficult tasks that would have challenged a fully grown person, such as drawing water and bringing it back up the winding paths of the cliff village without spilling. If she spilled, she'd have to go back down, but only with further taunts and insults were slung.

 

And in time, despite the other girl being her half sister, she mimicked her mother's behavior.

 

She was on the cusp of womanhood when she began to venture down from the cliffs. When she met one of the fabled and feared Grimm the first time, she did not understand why. To her, it was just another large bird. All right, it was a very large bird. But the Nevermore also became her friend, against all previous conceptions of the beasts.

 

But her sister and stepmother were so petty, that when they found out, they would not permit her the happiness. The memory of them alerting the village to the injured Grimm in the forest was so clear in her mind. No one was willing to listen to her when she tried to explain it meant them no harm, that it was just hurt. She had screamed when they'd cornered it, and sobbed when it faded into dust after being killed.

 

Why had they been so cruel? She hadn't been able to understand. Despite everything they had done, and that her heart ached, she couldn't imagine why. She wasn't broken.  _ Yet _ .

 

New Year's Eve had brought fireworks, even in the dead of winter. Despite the cold, she'd broken a piece of the red crystal off the cave wall in order to craft a paper lantern. It offered her heat and light, by which she crafted a new winter dress of her sheets. Feeling unusually proud of her accomplishments, she had left the cave with her lantern, as she had heard a festival above the cliffs.

 

Mistral had three levels, though most only acknowledge the bottom-the criminals and outlaws-and the top, the rich and the artisans.

 

The middle level was for the forgotten, like her. Most of the villagers and towns across the nation's countryside were the forgotten. They weren't rich enough to be heard, not did they cause enough trouble to be bothered with.

 

The New Year's Festival was being held by the rich and the talented. One of those was a charming young man who spotted her, and became charmed by her beauty and grace. He sought her company and heard her story, and then he wooed her. He offered to be her defender, to take her away to a life of charm.

 

It seemed so much like a fairy tale that she hadn't questioned it. She'd simply accepted his offer at word value, desperate to escape her life in the caves with a family that had made it so clear they didn't want her.

 

But the world was unforgiving. Almost as soon as they were wed, her suitor changed. He stole her designs and art to sell as his own, and when she confronted him, her husband smacked her.

 

It was the first time her husband beat her, but not the last time. The last time was months later. She had found hope in the promise of new life, an unexpected result of the tumultuous union. It was something that she has foolishly hoped would please him. And for a short while, it did, until her condition made her unable to continue sketching fashion designs for him.

 

The day he realized that, he'd been waiting for her when she rose from bed. That was something unusual, because he was usually already away at the textile factory, and immediately she knew it couldn't be good.

 

When she came to from the most brutal of the beatings he had deliver, she was in a medical facility. Somehow she'd known the answer before the told her-the life within had been lost. It didn't stop the truth from hurting.

 

She had been sitting in the gardens when she spied his approach through the windows. Her emotions swelled, but fear was no longer one of them. Despair and rage were the ones that won as he emerged from a door holding a bouquet of flowers. 

 

_ 'How dare he _ . '

 

Who was he to play the dutiful husband? He had been the one to snatch a sixteen-year-old up as his bride because he wanted to steal her talent to pass as his own. He had been the one to take advantage of her personal tragedies to earn her trust and take her away. He had been the one who had hit her so often she hadn't dared to leave their home, less someone ask where her bruises had come from. He had been the one who had bear her so severely, the one light she had found in all the darkness was blinked out of existence.

 

That was what broke her. Her stepmother. Her sister. Her husband. And that final loss of the child she had so desperately wanted.

 

And there was the man responsible, acting like he wasn't the reason she was there.

 

He'd touched her shoulder, and she had screamed, and the dust and dirt around her swirled and dried in an instant. Her semblance awoke, and in a moment, massive shards of glass flew into his body and pinned him to the wall. Someone gasped, and her eyes widened, but she was not upset. She hadn't realized she had such power within her until that moment, as she watched the man who'd once charmed her choke on his own blood, and eventually die.

 

She wasn't surprised when someone came to question her. But given the reason she had been admitted, and her medical history, it was let go. After all, she'd inherited his fortune-which, she considered, probably at least partially should have been hers in the first place.

 

When a pure heart is shattered beyond repair, there was no fixing or salvaging it. It was dark and empty, and she had learned trying to be good only ended in being taken advantage of and pain.

 

Eventually she was released from the hospital, and didn't expect the woman waiting for her. She was like no other she had ever seen, her complexion completely pale, hair to match, and she appeared to have some kind of condition that allowed dark veins to show on the edges of her face.

 

The woman smiled at her and invited her to walk.

 

"Do you know why I sought you out?" The woman asked.   
"No."

"I heard what you did in the gardens," The stranger continued, "A very impressive feat. I'd guess your semblance only just awoke?"   
"Yes." She was wary, "What do you want?"   
"That was actually my question for you," She smiled calmly, "What do you want?"

 

What. Did she want?

 

That was a good question. To be happy? It felt like that was a possibility she would never get back. She'd believed in love, and it had gotten her hospitalized. It had cost her more then it gained.

 

A family? What good had hers done for her? 

 

But that look on his face as he died. His eyes on her, wide with shock. Those felt like something she could get used to.

 

"I want to be strong," She stated, "I want to be feared. I want to be powerful."

 

The answer seemed to please the white skinned woman. She smirked, and it was a cold crooked thing.

"Your late husband, by all accounts, deserved what was coming to him. But it also sounds like his death was an accident. Would you be able to kill with intent?"

 

Well. There was a question. She considered it as they walked, and then she smirked softly.   
"There's one way to find out."

 

It was clear her stepmother and sister had never expected to see her again. They were shocked when she appeared in a new red dress, bruises still healing, but a confidence in her step. And yet, her stepmother spoke as if to berate her, to say it served her right for trying to get a better life then she deserved.

 

Apparently, they hadn't cleaned the cave since she'd left. So there was plenty of dust to harness, superheat, and transform in glass spears. Her stepmother barely had time to scream before three of them ran through her body. She should have felt something like remorse or sympathy when her sister begged her for mercy. But all she could remember was begging that same girl not to tell the village about her friend.

 

So when she threw the final shard through her sister's neck, she felt nothing.

 

No, she realized, as she turned to the dying embers of the fire. ' _ They never gathered any firewood after I left.' _

 

No, she felt one thing.

Relief.

Perhaps even giddy.

 

There had been something about their faces. It had been that fear they had held for her in their last moments. She wanted that feeling again and again. She'd felt no rush quite like it before.

 

She had an answer to the woman's question. To Salem's question.

Violence was no longer a problem for her.

Killing people was no longer a problem for her.

 

She'd become her Fallen Maiden.


End file.
